StrangeTangerine1525 t1_j1ex4uw wrote on December 23, 2022 at 8:24 PM

Reply to comment by zoicyte in Mars' ancient atmosphere may not have had much oxygen after all by pecika

The solar wind doesn't reach the surface on Mars, I believe you are thinking of UV radiation from the Sun, which goes straight through the atmosphere outside of dust storm season and would grill any microbes that aren't at least a meter below the surface.

zoicyte t1_j1f9k6c wrote on December 23, 2022 at 9:54 PM

Guarantee the solar wind particles reach the ground in mars.

But yeah. UV by far is the main problem.

StrangeTangerine1525 t1_j1fupe1 wrote on December 24, 2022 at 12:40 AM

You got a source for that? Mars has an ionosphere and magnetopause surrounding it, charged particles can’t get past it, and if they do, they still have the rest of the atmosphere to go through.

zoicyte t1_j1gakwm wrote on December 24, 2022 at 2:51 AM

https://marspedia.org/Radiation#:~:text=The%20average%20natural%20radiation%20level,times%20the%20average%20on%20Earth.

StrangeTangerine1525 t1_j1k5ceo wrote on December 25, 2022 at 12:32 AM

https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven/the-solar-wind-and-its-interaction-with-mars-ionosphere/ and for more in depth https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2020/mars-electric-currents. It appears the link you sent does list proton emission as a source of radiation, and that subatomic particles emitted by the Sun do reach the surface, though most are stopped by the atmosphere through processes linked above.